Microsoft Office 2013 has received its pricetags. Home and Student – Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote – is $140, while Home and Business, which adds Outlook into the mix, is $220. Professional jumps to a whopping $400, but adds Access and Publisher. For $100 per year, you can get the subscription version, which can be installed on up to 5 PCs (both Windows and OS X PCs). In related news, Microsoft still thinks it’s 2001.
Presumably the bean-counters have done the numbers and aren’t smoking crack …wonder what the prices are in £.
Nah, can’t see myself signing-up for this….no great loss to either party.
Yup.
Microsoft knows there are still plenty of MBAs out there who think pushing MS Office documents around equals productivity.
Fortunately for MS, there are many CIOs out there that would rather pony up the upgrade money, than go through the hassle of migrating to OpenLibre Office while then fighting back the rabble coming after them with pitchforks and torches. The professional world doesn’t care about free and monopolies, they want their damn powerpoints to work.
Don’t get me wrong, I use Libre Office here at home, but at work, I would rather run through a board meeting naked than push to offer up an alternative that’s 85% compatible, at best.
I’m a longtime Open/Libre Office user as well. And also MS Office, I’ve had a lot of jobs. (I prefer Libre for text and MS for spreadsheets, Excell is one of the few decent MS programs, can’t use Excell on my home computers though because I only have Linux boxes at home).
LibreOffice is 100% compatible to ODF standards. And of course it is not completely compatible to MS Office, which deliberately messes with compatibility.
Edited 2012-09-18 09:55 UTC
I just want to point out that MS-Office runs on Linux with WINE. If you really need/want a specific Excel feature I’ve found Office 2012 runs perfectly on Linux using WINE or CrossOver.
Thanks for the suggestion, I will look into Wine….(never installed it before)
The folks at WINE are doing a bang-up job. The last time I installed it was about 4 or 5 years ago and for running MS Office, it was rock solid. I can only imagine that it’s gotten better since then.
Since when did Pro not contain Access and Publisher?
As is typical with recent versions of Windows and Office; the artificial limitations and inflated costs just to get one itty-bitty little feature that happens to only be on the next-highest-price version. Or in this case, the absolute most highest price, biggest rip-off version.
Hey, Microsoft. Here’s a hint. I want a word processor, a spreadsheet program, and a database program. That presentation program? Shove it up your ass. The personal information manager, the publishing application, and all the other crap in the package… shove all of that up there too. Just for one thing that I might want–a database program–I would have to pay for a bunch of other useless garbage. A whopping 400 bucks. That’s one hell of a premium to have to pay just for a copy of Access. Microsoft must think we all shit money or something.
I have been an Abiword, Gnumeric, OpenOffice.org and more recently a LibreOffice user for many years, and although I do like the ribbon interface, Microsoft is giving me no good reason to switch to Office myself. A brief time playing with the demo was all I got, and it will be all I even bother with. The artificial limitations and inflated costs between Windows and Office honestly make it seem like they’re trying *not* to sell their software. After all these years having never owned a license to Microsoft Office, I don’t see that changing any time soon, even as 2012 reaches its end. And that is to say nothing of the new turd out of Redmond whose name ends with the number 8 (and no, not 98… that one was actually decent in comparison).
Of course, speaking of that above-mentioned turd, Microsoft has to convert me back to Windows before they can even get me to touch Office 13… but at this rate, hell will freeze over before I buy another license to use Windows.
I don’t know how a company can stay in business for so long pulling this shit off. It’s like they say “bend over!” and everyone just does it.
Bück Dich by Rammstein should be Microsoft’s official theme song of the 2000s. Good song, but damn, is it fitting for what Microsoft does or what. And as the years go by, it still shows no sign of changing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4sUOk91PhxQ
Edited 2012-09-18 03:19 UTC
Ok, so you don’t run Windows and don’t intend to.
Microsoft do sell Office. Just not to you. They probably do it in the way which generate more profit, which is their goal.
But maybe you and Thom are better at generating profit and running a business than Microsoft? I mean Thom think this strategy belongs in 2001. How much successful business has Thom created? I won’t comment on OSnews..
Microsoft likely know not everyone will use all of it. So what? Either you buy it or you don’t. You mention all the other programs, if you don’t want Office use those instead. Done deal?
MSFT market cap according to Google finance:
Mkt cap 261.65 B.
I know that’s only 6,5 months of FED mortage purchases but in difference with the FED Microsoft actually have to earn their income and produce something to earn their money.
Edited 2012-09-18 03:25 UTC
Fixed that for you.
There are actually many things I like about Windows. It’s just becoming more clear by the year that all the bad is not being corrected, and even more crap is being put into place. I already stated that I like Office’s ribbon UI, and that if I could buy a copy including three programs for a decent price, I would. Potentially.
But that’s not going to happen. Both because Windows is heading down in a rut, and Office is… well, still not changing its ways with pricing and editions (and neither is Windows). The fact that it’s Windows and Mac only further puts Office out of my league. So yes, for the time being, there are many alternatives that I’ll use when I need a word processor, spreadsheet, or database program.
Oh, you mean in such anti-competitive ways as cheap deals with OEMS to pre-install the software on their systems for much lower than you’d have to pay at retail? In other words… the same exact way they do with Windows?
Edited 2012-09-18 03:38 UTC
Can’t you buy the OEM version with new hardware?
Maybe not?
Personally I don’t have a need for Office and wouldn’t spend lots for it.
I assume the open-source programs work fine for what I could want to do with them (don’t know about Access equivalents) and that the issue for all of them except LibreOffice is lack of file compatibility but _I_ don’t have need for that but if one do that’s an issue.
Silly that we should be depending on a proprietary format for our documents and that people would demand to have them in Microsoft format. At least as long as we’re not talking pixel or print perfect layout of the content.
Then maybe it’s harder with a common format, but it should still be doable?
This was rather expensive:
http://www.komplett.se/k/ki.aspx?sku=760639
Cheaper but I don’t know what it contain:
http://www.komplett.se/k/ki.aspx?sku=601922
Oh, it was 2013 revealed. Guess that’s why I’m not seeing it there yet.
Home and business got Access? So you don’t need Professional?
http://www.komplett.se/k/ki.aspx?sku=598229
But maybe that was changed in TFA.
Uh, Microsoft Office Home & Student includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote for $139 which usually what most users need and you can run it forever on up to 3 PC’s. What more could you want? Greedy?
For someone who doesn’t use Microsoft Office, you sound quite bitter about it. Is that a hint that you wish to still use Microsoft Office? Let me throw you a bone, go to one of the launch events and get a freebie or go to the Microsoft Office Facebook page and like the page. They usually have contest there where they giveaway free copies of Microsoft Office just for answering a question or playing a fun game. I personally won a copy of Microsoft Office Professional 2010 which I still have not used yet. If I could get in touch with you, I probably would give it to you. You sound so bitter and desparate.
Say what you will, but we just moved a 20 person small business to Office 365 and they love it. I know that I will have no problem explaining what the subscription service gets them and I’m sure there will be plenty of small to medium sized businesses coming along for the ride. This is a play to try to keep from losing all the businesses to Google at this point.
why office365 and not Google apps ?
In a word.
Different.
To add more words I suspect that it is safe to assume that the “moved” in the grandparent refers to going from Office to Office 365. Depending on the subscription this may include licenses for the desktop applications, for which the Google Apps aren’t really a full replacement. Beyond that part the Office web apps also integrate better with both regular Office and other Microsoft products (Sharepoint). Finally the price of Office isn’t all that high in the grand scheme of things, so even very small inefficiencies with switching to Google Docs are enough to not make it worth it.
Not a user of Office365, so I can’t say how good (or bad) is.
But I have used Google Docs and it’s just a bad joke. Useful if you only need to write simple letters and do a few calculations using an spreadsheet, but if you need it to do real work (at least, the kind of work I do) is totally useless. It’s too limited and not flexible enough. Maybe that’s the reason to use Office 365 instead of Google Docs.
Horrible products for horrible pricing. Sounds fair!
One may balk at these prices, but college staff and students do not have to pay for them because msft provides an academic license. This is much much cheaper, in fact staff get a ‘free’ copy as well as the one on their desktop/laptop.
Pernicious, as these prices await outside of college. Not to mention the academic failure in the lack of awareness (and ability) when it comes to considering or using alternatives.
Not necessarily. Every single company I’ve worked for since college has been part of the Microsoft Office Home Use Program, where you can legally purchase the most recent versions of Office, Visio, and Project for $9.99/copy. Considering my undergrad school offered Office for $30, it actually gets cheaper when you graduate. I love my Linux desktop, I really do, but it’s hard to justify dealing with the file incompatibility of LibreOffice when the real thing is so cheap and Wine works so well. What ever happened to those MS Office filters that Nokia purchased for Calligra, anyway?
What would be nice is if government standardized on ODF. I’m actually interested in hearing from those of you who lived under Mitt Romney when he codified an ODF standard for Mass. government. Has that ever come to pass, or was it just a good will gesture that was never enforced?
Well…It’s true they are cheaper and I probably would not pay full whack for a non-education copy but I have switched back to Office just recently exactly in order to be productive after using OpenOffice then LibreOffice for around 4-5 years in total.
The inability of these products to read .docx correctly, the crashes, the hacked formatting, the disruption caused by all that squabbling when they forked – finally got to me. The last straw was using LibreOffice’s Impress for a formal presentation only to find that it had got massively scrambled in being saved, and half the images failed on actually presenting.
I am on a Mac by the way, and use Linux off and on at home. However, although not a Microsoft fanboy, I have to say that Office has come a long way since I stopped using it regularly; it’s an easy suite of tools to deploy by comparison, at least for me.
If you are not going to use your own computer, you need to have your presentation as pdf. Just in case something goes wrong. Likely, it will.
I have had similar problems using Powerpoint. The last one, I had a 1-hour presentation and I needed to prepare a shorter version. I just hide 90% of the slides and in my computer those slides weren’t shown during the presentation rehearsal. But, they were shown during the presentation in front of the audience. I had a very bad time during those 10 minutes. Some kind of incompatibility between powerpoint versions.
Yes, I agree, that’s one sensible way to do it. Actually, if truth be told, there’s a growing acceptance of not having ‘slides’ (say the word as though you were pointing out a Marvel comic at a Classics seminar) at all. Analogue all way!
Hi, Thom!
This totally made me laugh.
I think I know what you mean, but I’m not quite sure. Would you be willing to explain it? Do you feel a different pricing model would be better?
Maybe my problem is that I’ve been using free and open source software for so long I have no idea what current pricing models are.
Anyway, thank you!
Yeah, I was a little confused by that comment as well. My guess was that the previous version of office doesn’t suck, so why buy a newer version that won’t be better enough to justify the cost. Back in 2001 you had office 2000 which was good, but screwed up compatibility with previous versions of office. If a user opened an access document with access 2000 and wanted to edit something, it was transformed into a format that users still with office 97 couldn’t use. Office XP fixed that, allowing users to edit access docs in any previous version without transforming it into a newer version.
It’s not just MS that is stuck in 2001. Many of their large corporate accounts are stuck there as well, so of course they will buy – eventually.
OpenOffice pricing revealed = $0
New, more competitive Student Edition! = $0
Subscription version! = $0
Home and Business editions! = $0
Installs on up to 5 PCs! = $0